4 minute read
Saving social care
In another of our Year Ahead 2019 features that looks at the social care crisis, we have two experts, Professor Martin Green, Chief Executive of Care England and Neil Eastwood, adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care and the author of “Saving Social Care”, give their views of what we must do to support a sustainable social care workforce.
It is true to say that we live in very uncertain times with Brexit, the falling pound and the inability of the Government to put forward a long-term strategy for social care are all having an enormous impact on this sector. The State of Social Care Report, which was published by the Care Quality Commission, gave politicians yet another clear warning that the crisis in social care is happening now and the demographic change that we have talked about for the last 20 years is here.
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One of the biggest challenges that we face is how to secure the workforce that will be needed to support the growing number of people who will find themselves reliant on the care system.
Martin Green
Brexit is already having an impact on social care with many nurses and social care workers leaving the country, not because they feel unwelcome, but because the value of the pound has dropped so significantly. There is no longer a reason to work in the United Kingdom, when the same amount of money can be secured on the mainland of Europe where travel between their home and host country is much easier.
Faced with this enormous workforce challenge and the uncertainty, the Government needs to have a clear plan for the transition between the current reliance on overseas staff and their desire to make social care the career of choice for UK residents.
The departure from the EU could provide us with an opportunity to recruit from the global pool of skilled and appropriate staff. However, we require the Government to change the criteria of the Migration Advisory Committee, and focus on skills shortages, not salary levels.
There is a need for an integrated approach to the workforce across health and social care. We need the enormous budgets of Health Education England to be available to social care so that we develop a workforce that can move seamlessly across the system just as citizens requiring care do.
The workforce issues are equally as challenging as the funding issues and unless we get a long-term solution for the funding and staffing of social care, we will not be able to deliver on the enormous and growing need.
Neil Eastwood
Whilst I welcome the Government’s commitment to a National Recruitment Campaign, which I am advising on, social care needs a much more significant and long-term workforce investment to begin to change the perceptions of the public towards what it means to be a care worker. We know from experience of other national re-branding campaigns, how long it takes to move the needle in the minds of the public.
We also need a workforce strategy that everyone can get behind, like the excellent one for Aged Care that Australia now have, thanks to the work of Professor John Pollaers. We can’t prevaricate, the time for action is now.
I am firmly of the view that the only stakeholders who can get us out of this impending crisis are the care providers themselves. They are a constant long-term presence, while Local Authority and NHS commissioners and senior management come and go or posts are filled with interims. From my research and testing there is certainly the potential to meet current and future workforce needs by employers making simple changes to the way they recruit and retain.
To achieve this Neil suggests some practical steps:
1. Every care provider needs to lean in. It is unacceptable for owners and directors of care businesses to be bystanders when what they do is so central to a civilised society. A good first step is for all Registered Managers to join a network such as that offered by Skills for Care, to access best practice and peer support.
2. Employers must do better at stemming unnecessary staff loss, particularly in the first 90 days. Simple interventions, such as setting up a buddying scheme for new starters, have been proven to have a profound impact. Staff should be paid fairly and fully. There should be regular gratitude for care workers from supervisors.
3. It is imperative recruiters diversify their sourcing away from an over-reliance on Internet job boards and towards proven high quality sources like word of mouth, employee referral schemes, family carers and returner programmes. Hire people who want to care, not those just looking for a job or to mollify their work coach at Job Centre Plus.
Client reaction
Businesses thrive on certainty, yet in social care we have contrived to generate as much uncertainty as possible! Staffing is a particular area of concern. In Surrey, where Ashcroft Care operates learning disability services, the supply of outstanding people is constrained by the poor image of social care, low unemployment and the strangling effects of Brexit. Years of underfunding have driven a race to the bottom where skilled support workers are closing in on minimum wage.
Given these pre-conditions we operators have to be at the top of our game. We must strive to:
• Persuade the politicians to recognise the need to build the social care workforce, sourcing people from the UK and abroad. We must also keep fighting for fair funding, so we can pay people what they are worth. The work of Martin Green and others is so important here.
• Shift perceptions in the labour market so people understand just how special a career in social care can be. At Ashcroft our managers meet with local school leavers to promote our sector as a positive and fulfilling career choice.
• Open up the channels into employment in social care. In Surrey the Care Association’s Workforce Development Project is doing great work to attract the young, the rejoiners, the early-retired and others into the sector.
• Become outstanding employers. We must embrace best practices in recruitment and retention, as championed by Neil Eastwood, and create vibrant workplaces in which people choose to spend their working lives.
We have to do all this and more, and hope it is enough.
David Holmes Chairman of Ashcroft Care Services and Surrey Care Association
